Attention, ladies and gentleman, we have a skilled savage in our midst. Unfulfilled and malcontent with the life of a vagabond pirate, Twitchell has converted his sharp gambling skills and no-doubt overpowering table presence into a cool $50,000 US Dollars, and a seat at a 28-person tournament with a $1,000,000 US Dollar jackpot.

For those of you who don’t know Twitchie, this means much less to YOU than it does to ME.

Twitchell won a 241-person blackjack tournament on Friday, and now has his sights set on the $1 Million Dollar grand prize. It is unfuckingbelievable, and let me tell you a little more about why this is so ridiculous. Twitchie is an uncouth pirate, a degenerate criminal of the 2nd degree, and an all-around waste of space. I don’t say this in a bad way, but in a good way. Purity is a rare and valuable thing, and Twitchell is undoubtedly a pure scoundrel.

I have only one thing to say, and that is, “Good luck in the finals, you fucker.” I have major doubts that Twitchell will be able convert that 50k into a multi-year lifestyle of high living. With 50k of free, fresh winnings in my hand, I would be very very hardpressed not to throw a 3-week party, and I am a lot more responsible than Twitch. In other words, you better keep winning, and hit that $1 million jackpot if you want to keep living the dream. Otherwise, you better save half of that money, because I’m pretty sure the IRS is going to come knocking on your door exactly one year from today.

In the same vein, I paid my taxes today at the last possible minute. I owed $181 in federal and about $31 in state taxes, but the rebate should be nice in a little bit. The special lady got mad refunds, big time….

In the spirit of this day of payment and fear, let us all rejoice in Twitchell’s victory, and envision ourselves in his High Seat of Gambling Skill. To win a tournament with 241 people in it is not a mere act of “chance” or “luck.” That’s called skill, and it’s the very same reason that I have full faith in Twitchie’s ability to win the $1 million. I have a large and varied history of gambling, and believing in the good stuff, and being “sure” that I am going to come away the winner, whether it’s competition or just real life.

At the risk of jinxing the run, I predict Twitchell’s victory fully, the #1 champ, the $1 million dollar winner. I predict the win because I believe in the skill, not for any other reason.

The ending scene of the last story in the Dubliners, by James Joyce, happens when a middle-aged schoolteacher looks out the windows of his house at a dinner party, and watches the falling snow. Somehow our boy Joyce took the simple and created a profound, spiritual event out of it.

The guy looking out the window is James Joyce, if he had stayed in Ireland, or wherever he’s from, and not gone out to help lead the Lost Soldiers. For him, staying in Ireland meant getting a potbelly, grading papers for mediocre students in a mediocre town, and existing in a “lesser” existence. By “lesser” we mean that he didn’t fulfill his destiny of writing books that no one understands; taking the easy road out, coasting through life and not challenging himself. The pot belly, duh, doesn’t really sound like the “real” James Joyce, does it? But what he’s saying is, the potbelly Joyce is the real Joyce, just in a different universe. It’s just as real, as evidenced by the realness of the moment pot belly looks outside and reflects on the snow. That moment exists, because we read the story, and we know what really happened to James Joyce, and it’s very clear that the person in the story is an alternate version of a middle-aged James Joyce.

But what gets me really twisted off about the story, is that he wrote it when he was only 20 or so. He wrote a bunch of short stories, and BAM, they’re published, and that was it. He wrote a story about his alternate future self, and if you can let yourself go there, he created a different reality. In the future. It’s weird, right?

In another book, The Beach, there’s a scene where the guy is laying on the beach talking to the girl, and he gets all metaphysical and alternate-universe. He basically postulates that if the universe is infinite (it’s not), then there are an infinite number of possibilities of existence, which means that there are an infinite number of “Earths” out there, with the exact same history. Except in some worlds, this tree is over 3 inches to the left, and that tree is over 3 inches to the right. But there’s an infinite number of possibilities, so that means an infinite number of histories, an infinite number of versions of yourself, and an infinite number of histories on an Earth where you never exist. Once you throw “infinite” into the equation, there’s basically nothing stopping you. At first, I loved the concept, but after a while, I began to think it was just a shallow literary device, a moment of feigned deepness in an adventure story. It’s a nice piece of fluff, for sure.

And the question remains, does any of it matter, anyway? If James Joyce never lived, then he wouldn’t have written his books, so pot-belly James Joyce wouldn’t have lived, we wouldn’t have read about the falling snow, so who the fuck cares. But in The Beach’s version, all the different worlds exist, with and without James Joyce, so it’s not like the universe is “missing out” on James Joyce, because he does in fact exist and he wrote all those stories (in addition to others that we haven’t read because he wrote them in a different universe).

And the age factor does it to me again. Joyce wrote the stories when he was 20. By the time he was 20 years old, Joyce had a very serious grip on life, the world and his “destiny.” To be writing shit like that at that age doesn’t just happen by accident. Either he was born with the natural talent to be able to just create things with words, or he worked really really hard growing up. I would imagine that both play a factor in the classic nature vs. nurture battle.

So anyway, there you have it, my Friday POS. I never saw the Beach movie with Leo, so I can’t comment on his philosophizing and what not. Peace out.

A second lease on life? What if you got a second lease on your second life, like your computer avatar, or whatever.

I thought of something today, and then dismissed myself. Here’s what I thought about: China is big in the news right now for “human rights violations.” Everyone is up arms about it, or at least a few people are. Everyone is pushing the Tibet issue.

I’m not going to do any research for this one, because I’m just not there. What about Darfur? Every single person I have seen waving a sign says some shit about Tibet. How many people have the Chinese actually “killed” in Tibet, or had a hand in? I have no idea, really.

Anyway, the reason everyone is talking about Tibet is because of the Dali Lama. Everybody likes the Dalai Lama because he is a super-nice guy, and he is the leader of an undeniably “hip” religion. Meditation, CHECK. Orange robes, CHECK. Allusions of martial arts ass-kicking, CHECK.

My point is, it’s a lot easier to rally around an orange spiritual leader than it is to rally behind faceless starving Africans from Africa. The UN, or US (no research) has PUBLICLY STATED that the Darfur situation is indeed a genocide that is occurring….as you read this blog. A genocide, being when one group of people systematically kills another group of people. China is giving the Sudan government guns (or something), which is in turn fueling this crazy genocide (or something). From what enters my foggy head peripherally, I can understand that China does in fact have a hand in the Sudan shitstem, in that they are profiting from the conflict, and their weapons are helping to continue the conflict, and China plans to keep supplying weapons and shit to keep up the profit.

Now that is a classic case of something I don’t fully understand being totally fucked up.

Moving right along, the media’s abandonement of the Darfur issue in favor of the Tibet issue has got to be killing a number of major celebrities, whose main “cause,” as it were, was bringing the Darfur situation to public’s eye. To be honest, I had no idea what the fuck Darfur was until I heard a bunch of celebrities talking about how fucked up it was, then the media storm (9-12 months ago) helped to bring it home. It’s fucked up! What I want to know is, is Brad, Angie and George Clooney sitting around in their Hollywood Hills mansion, cussing out the Dali Lama for stealing there show.

Angie: What the fuck, I’m the one who started this whole cause.

George: Well, actually, She-Devil, my dad has been really involved in this environmental, humanitarian bullshit for a long time. You’re not the first one, jackass.

For the last 3 days, or ever since I really caught on to the Great American Blog Revival, I have been wracking my brain for some shit to come up with.

Make fun of my friends and Stonies. This worked for the first 9 months of the blog, but history has proven this an inferior strategy for generating views. Too many inside jokes for non-Stonies to get into.

Complain about how shitty my job is. This worked for the first 9 months of the blog, but because I have a new job that is not shitty, this doesn’t work anymore either.

Talk about how messed up I get/ used to get. This one never gets old to me, but to other people who don’t know me, I think they take these posts a little too seriously. Yes, we did do that, but we can’t talk about it like that anymore.

Bash, compare and promote Bands. I love music, and will continue to highlight shows and bands of interest.

Come up with stupid lists that have no point. I’m doing that right now, but just without numbers. Please think of them as talking points, but not numbered.

Scour the internet for the freshest videos and pictures. Roughtonius unearthed some internet gold….where is Roughtonius anyway? (see first talking point [he’s taking it up the butt]).

Talk about politics. I am tired of useless politricks. Over the past year, I have moved ideologically from the medium left to the center. I don’t believe in the government helping people out so much anymore, if you want to be cold about it. Is global warming really real? In the end, I don’t really care.

Out with old, little bitches. There’s a little sum-up. From now on, expect less of the old and more of the new. What’s the new? I don’t know yet, because we’re not quite there. I do know that I am still a neurotic ball of rotten garbage juice. I may have fermented a little, but that’s just going to get you more fucked up off my shizzle.

I have been considering promoting a new group identity. The Stonies, as it were, have totally abandoned and fucked the cause right up its powdered ass. Right there, in the balloon-knot. You know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, I think a new identity would be cool. SWS will always be SWS, not that we have any long-timers or anything. Like the Wu-Tang has the killer bees, NWA is the most dangerous group, and……Busta-Rhymes has Flip-Mode?!?!

No but seriously…fuck all you bitches, for real. Bunch of no-good panty-waist slack-jawed dumbfuck hillbillies. Useless.

PS- Digi-cam in the house now. Maybe I’ll throw up some pictures about how to keep it real on the West Coast. East Coast is for pussies!! And bitches!!!

Ah, the Olympics. What a chance for the world to prove to itself that humanity is real, that the human heart is alive and well. What a joke!

The new job has arrived, da-DING! Excellence.

What can I say after 2 months off the shit job, under the radar? Not much, to tell the truth.

And for some serious commentary…

Hillary has been exposed, and I stand corrected for my support for the feminazi wench. Now I must choose between an incognito Muslim and a crazy white boy! This one will be tough…

And as for the Stoneys, ouch what a sorry crew. What a pathetic excuse for camaraderie, what a tired effort in solidarity.

Keep up the good faith, ye uninformed jumble. Do not forget about the times when we almost had 1000 page views in one day, a number spurned higher and higher only by the sick twisted social machination of Roughtonius, who would fool a peasant schoolgirl into believing in the mythical Pegasus, if only to stroke his gay Irish ego. Pfffft.

And there you have it, the Great Blog Revival continues. I wanted to write more, but I am tired after stuffing envelopes all day. Where’s the beef?

Well, my plan worked. Everyone is gone and there is nobody to read/write entries. All mine! mwhaahaahaa. Anyway, it’s been awhile and I just wanted to start off by telling everyone that they are gay.

For news, well, I ran into a long lost brother: III dog. I was standing outside of an academic building dreading the fact that I had to go to class and up walks the one the only. But, does everyone know that grad school is for fags? This shit blows and if you ever feel any inclination to lead a more fulfilling life and escape your wage slavery–don’t. Yes, that’s right. You have an eyewitness that is telling you. Live an unfulfilling, selfish life. Work, put in your eight hours, go home, and forget about what hell you just went through. The beauty of work is that you can leave it at the office if you want. Grad school is gay. I’ve actually decided to do my reading for once and now all I do is fucking read. Read, Read, REad. And, some may say, “well, that guy is lucky. He is enlightening his brain and reading interesting stuff.” Well, if you think that is the case you are sorely mistaken. Nothing is interesting in my course of study. I mean, does anyone find gender roles in Antebellum (pre-war) America interesting? No, only man-hating lezzies. Well, I guess I miss not reading cool stuff and listening to people talk about it.

On another note, all the nay-sayer can eat a big fat because the Giants won the Super Bowl. Yep, that’s right, Giants. As for shit-talk for upcoming events, Red Sox are looking to defend their championship. Unfortunately, I’ll be stuck watching the National League suck the big one.